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Book review: Justina Robson’s Natural History
Milan M. Cirkovic
Astronomical Observatory of Belgrade
(arioch@eunet.yu)
Journal of Evolution and
Technology - Vol. 16
Issue 1 - June 2007 - pgs 167-170
http://jetpress.org/v16/cirkovic.html
 PDF Version
Natural History. By Justina Robson. Bantam Books, New York, 2005. 327
pp., $13.00
(paperback). ISBN: 0553587412
But as the millions of
years go by, so too, if we may judge the future by the past, will humanity
as we know it ultimately yield place to some other animal form? What form?
Whence evolved? We cannot say. But some Cosmic Intellect, watching the
mature capacities of this unknown form, will almost certainly judge it to
be more highly evolved, of greater value in the scheme of things, than
ourselves. On Earth man has no permanent home; and if, as I believe,
absolute values are never destroyed, those which humanity carries must be
preserved elsewhere than on this globe.
Ernest W. Barnes (1933)
Rare are the books where an
excerpt from a philosophical or scientific tract, like the one quoted
above, can be regarded as almost a spoiler
of the intricate and densely woven literary plot. Natural History is definitely such a book. In the constellation of
the born-again space opera (think of Alastair Reynolds, Karl Schroeder,
Iain M. Banks, John C. Wright, Greg Egan, and Charles Stross), we encounter
a new and bright star. It is definitely not a supernova, it certainly is a
variable star, but its future remains – as is still often the case in
stellar studies – uncertain, pending future observations. Some of the data
gathered so far are summarized in this brief review.
In the several
centuries' distant future envisioned by Justina Robson in Natural History, the massed ranks of
humanity find themselves the Unevolved. They are enhanced in many subtle
ways, and they live longer, happier, and fuller lives than in any previous
time in history, but they are no longer the greatest ape, the lords of
nature. They are mere Monkeys. Or so the Forged, new and in many respects
superior creations of bioengineering, would have them believe.
The Forged are still
human, at least legally, but they are also unequivocally Other. Many are
animal based: arachnids, hive-minded insectoids or avians (like one of the
three main characters, an unconventional Forged engineer named Roc
Handslicer Corvax). Others are vast spaceships. Between these are hybrids,
like the shuttle Ironhorse AnimaMekTek Aurora, “a smooth blue oval with a
long, graceful tail like a gigantic airborne manta ray” (p. 64), and beyond
all of them are the Gaiaforms. These are, vast creatures designed to carry
out the megaengineering terraforming tasks that have rendered the Moon and
Mars habitable.
Despite maintaining
cordial (or at least politely cooperative) relations with the Unevolved,
some of the Forged dream of Zion.
They want self-determination so they can shake off their pre-ordained
lives. Their bodies have been built for a purpose, so to deviate from that
purpose is, in a sense, to rebel against themselves. When Corvax dissents
from his original function and embraces a different life, he is slowly
eaten from the inside. The Gaiaforms have to be kept in stasis because they
were designed for such vigorous lives that they would consume themselves if
sedentary. This is the tyranny of Form and Function. When one of the most
extreme Forged independists discovers a habitable planet that circles the
distant star poetically named Zia di Notte, the Forged have a world with
the potential to become their Zion.
What had been a slowly brewing crisis now suddenly explodes into the
novel’s plotline.
The title of the book is
itself a delightful, multilayered provocation: Robson takes a
half-forgotten term that encompassed much of what we now call the earth and
life sciences, together with some aspects of astrobiology and planetary
science, and makes it a symbol of the unity between cosmological,
biological and cultural evolution. Without disclosing too much to
prospective readers, one should say that the book's essential philosophical
insight offers a fresh perspective on the central epistemological problem
of all historical sciences, including the evolutionary biology: how can
we distinguish between contingencies
and the outcomes of inexorable, hidden laws? More specifically, what
observable components of any complex system, be it the terrestrial
biosphere or the Galactic Habitable Zone, have arisen through long-term
functionalist interactions (like the natural selection in the dominant
adaptationist view of biological evolution)? How much is merely the
consequence of the structural and other constraints of each particular form manifested
within the system (as in most of the contemporary art theory, or in the
discarded biological theories of orthogenesis or saltationism)?
There is a huge amount
of literature on this subject, and it presents one of the most interesting
chapters in the entire history of ideas. The ebbs and flows of our
understanding of the relationship of Form and Function in shaping the
terrestrial biosphere, and indeed ourselves, have been masterfully
presented by several modern evolutionists (for example, Stephen Jay Gould
devoted more than two hundred pages of his magnum opus, The
Structure of Evolutionary Theory, to the history of contending
doctrines of functionalism and formalism in biological evolution; Peter
Bowler’s Evolution: The History of an
Idea is also a fine entry point).
Natural
History belongs to a sub-genre of science ficton that might be be called
"the transcendence novel”. For classic prototypes, think of Clarke’s Childhood’s End and the Strugatsky
bothers' The Ugly Swans. Egan’s Distress and Schild’s Ladder, Vinge’s A
Fire upon the Deep, Baxter’s Destiny’s
Children trilogy, and Schroeder’s brilliant Lady of Mazes are more recent works with the same theme. (By
contrast, Wright’s Golden
Transcendence fails to join to this select club; it is more of an anti-transcendence novel, since it
shows the reemergence of some all-too-human weaknesses and demerits in a
“golden age”.) Overarching all of these is the mighty cathedral of their
great forebear, Olaf Stapledon’s Last
and First Men (1930).
The yearning for
transcendence, for a cosmic phase transition to posthumanity, is a leitmotif almost from the opening of
Natural History. Voyager Lonestar
Isol, an insect-like cosmic explorer, and the first viewpoint character,
expresses it most clearly. “Even a Forged life is so short and this place is so very big. How
could you stand to be late?” (p. 3) “Is there
nothing about you that stands out and above all of that glibly mortal
hyperbole, that came this far and saw so little?” (p. 7)
What Robson suggests is
a rehash of the transcendence idea in
evolutionary (though not necessarily Darwinian) biology: in the same
manner as a Lamarckian functionalism substitutes for the Darwinian one in
the cultural evolution of humanity, something completely new – like the old
formalist saltationism of de Vries and Goldschmidt? – but still perfectly
natural, should be associated with the Transcendence (i.e. the particular
form of transcending described in the novel is capitalized). Ironically
enough, the Transcendent perspective in the novel obviates much of the old
debate between functionalism and formalism. In words of the first human who
consciously oversteps the boundary, “[y]ou know,... the whole issue of
what shape you’re in is really much more trivial than I thought” (p. 293).
To say anything more here would be to spoil one of the most beautiful
twists in the book.
Robson’s book
masterfully exploits some of today's fashionable scientific notions, such
as the Galactic habitable zone in astrobiology and M-theory in fundamental
physics. M-theory (along with its parent-theory, Green-Schwartz-Witten
superstrings) is particularly well-employed in constructing the mechanism
of desired Transcendence. Whether this
controversial theory will stand its ground by the time of Gaiasol
and the events described in the novel is uncertain (and unlikely in my
view), but that is a secondary issue.
As an important aside,
we occasionally get a glimpse of the process so sadly familiar from the
twentieth century: the gradual transformation of noble idealists into
violent revolutionaries, and finally into vicious tyrants. Robson subtly
exploits this political theme: contrary to what might be expected, she does
not offer instant moral support for the self-proclaimed victims of
oppression among the Forged. It is clear from the start – in similarity to
almost all revolutions in human history – that only a vocal minority of the
Forged are the true promoters of the ideas of the Forged Independence
Party. However, as human history amply demonstrates, it sometimes takes no
more than a strongly organized and unsatisfied minority to unleash a civil
war, followed by tyranny, destruction, and long-term sufferings. As the
events of Natural History unfold,
we are left with the pessimistic sense that a true deus ex machina is required. Vicious civil war may be averted
by a near-miraculous brush with the Transcendence, and a protagonist can be
saved from consequences of her own extreme views by inadvertently
Transcending, but Robson makes the general note of warning quite clear.
This is another reason why even readers not keen on transcendence theme
should drink from the spring of this delightful book.
None of this is to deny
that Natural History has
weaknesses. In terms of sheer reading pleasure and colorfulness of the
scenery, it lags behind The Golden
Age or The Lady of Mazes. As
a novel of ideas, it has flaws and inconsistencies that are never resolved,
since the author typically hurries to another witty passage or the next Big
Idea. For example, one indispensable assumption that drives the plot is
that the Forged need an Earth-like planet—but for what, exactly? If they
can survive and prosper on Jupiter and Saturn (which offer them vast living
space), the discovery of an Earth-like planet many parsecs away should be
little more than a matter for their curiosity. Zephyr Duquesne, the
Unevolved inspector of the newly-discovered planet, is inter alia, a poster child for the politically oppressed of our times; this politically correct
anachronism is emphasized by the fact that it takes a Forged to notice that
she’s “short, female [and] black” (p. 71).
Further, if the future
society has adopted a very broad definition of human rights, evidently
based on the notion of personhood rather than human form, why are
artificial intelligences (AIs) deprived of these rights? It is stated at
one point that AIs are not sentient, but that sounds more like a pretext
than the real reason, especially since the one AI described in some detail,
Zephyr’s abacand (an advanced cousin of your mercifully quiet laptop) is
certainly Turing-intelligent and quite witty in addition. The same dilemma
applies to virtual-reality constructs that apparently possess autonomous
personas, but are not protected by Gaiasol police/military, virtual reality
branch. If it is just a human flaw in the system, to be corrected in time,
as sounds plausible at first glance, how is it that even the Transcendence
won’t accept Zephyr’s abacand? This dilemma suggests a quasi-mystical
vitalism, like that which permeates much of the leftist environmentalism we
see today, which enthusiastically affirms animal rights but shuns any idea
of attributing rights to machines, even future intelligent machines. This
will, clearly, remain an open philosophical question as long as specific
criteria for testing sentience remain undefined, and Robson is entitled to
have her opinion on this expressed in the novel. On the other hand, if the
delicate issue of rights is concerned, isn't more natural and reasonable
when in doubt to err on the side of inclusiveness, rather than
exclusiveness?
The resolution of the
novel is weak, even if we accept that its very end, a fine “return to
normal life” episode given from the viewpoint of a dog (homage to Clifford Simak?) is intentionally
softened. There is no powerful sense here of a triumph over evil, and the
only casualty is punished not for his evil schemes, but for
black-marketeering of a kind that may be politically incorrect by some
current standards but seemingly violates no one's rights. This outcome is
unlikely to provide readers with the Aristotelian catharsis. Of course, the novel's lack of closure may also be a
marketing ploy to allow room for future sequels.
Finally, the author
provides some rather smug “hints and tips” for the illuminated. For
example, in naming the city-like structure on the mysterious planet
Tanelorn, Robson not only flaunts the book's literary roots (which is fine
in itself), but also implies the existence of higher dimensions, and that
some of the plot’s secrets will be resolved through additional
dimensions/universes. Moreover, since Tanelorn is the fixed point in the
Moorcockian multiverse, and it turns out much later that the structure on
Zia di Notte plays exactly the same role for the Transcendent Ones, the
“hint” is perhaps too strong.
All in all, Robson's book
is a worthy addition to the small library of novels that give serious and
careful consideration to the ramifications of a Stapledonian vision of
humanity's cosmic evolution. Natural
History is not perfect, but it provides an enjoyable and colorful
journey. If you are interested in the fate of humankind and what Georges
Lemaitre called the “searching of souls as
well as of spectra”, you’ll feel welcome on this lyrical voyage.
Notes
Scientific Theory and Religion, Gifford Lectures 1927-1929 (Cambridge U. Press,
Cambridge, 1933), p. 503. Barnes, the Bishop of Birmingham, was a
distinguished mathematician, theologian and an early futurist, whose prescient
ideas about cosmic evolution are closely related to the similar ideas of
his more famous contemporaries, such as H. G. Wells, O. Stapledon, J. B. S.
Haldane or K. E. Tsiolkovsky.
It is a pleasure to
acknowledge invaluable technical help of James Hughes, as well as useful
discussions with Irena Diklić, Mark A. Walker, Robert J. Bradbury and
Slobodan Popović. A referee is thanked for helpful comments and
criticisms.
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